DOLCE (Lodovico). - Lot 39

DOLCE (Lodovico). Le Trasformationi. Venice: Gabriele Giolio de Ferrari, 1555. - In-4, 238 x 154 : (8 ff.), 309 pp. Tan glazed calf, double gilded fillet framing the boards, gilded numeral "Ed" in the center of the first board, ribbed spine, speckled edges (19th-century binding). Third edition, after the two published in 1553, of the adaptation in Italian vulgar language of Ovid's Metamorphoses by the humanist Lodovico Dolce (1508-1568). " The work had been announced as early as 1551, in Giolito's edition of Orlando Furioso, but in reality its gestation had been much longer. Indeed, after the attempt of M. Lodouico Dolce in Volgare Traduzione's Premier Livre des Transformations d'Ovide, published in Venice in 1539 by Francesco Bindoni and Maffeo Pasini, the project of a complete translation of Ovid's poem had been pursued by Dolce in collaboration with Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari. The first privilege to publish Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Dolce into ottava rima was requested by the publisher as early as 1548. Granted for ten years, the privilege had to be renewed in 1550 and again in 1552, for a further fifteen years, in view of Dolce's backlog of deliveries. Meanwhile, Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara's competing vernacular translation weighed on the enterprise, to the point of prompting Gabriel Giolito to insert the propaganda notice addressed to Orlando Furioso's many readers" (Les Muses parmi les livres. Illustrated Venetian books of the 16th and 17th centuries at the University Library of Padua). This edition, dedicated like the first to Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1586), features a handsome title frame and 85 woodcut vignettes in the text, attributed to Giovanni Antonio Rusconi, compared with 94 in the first edition. All feature a decorative ornament on either side of the engraving, except for the one on page 3 depicting a globe surrounded by the various winds. "The northern and southern parts of the hemisphere are separated by a latitudinal band and the words "Zona Torrida Inhabitabile". The Strait of Magellan is named and wind cherubs border the map" (Shirley, The Mapping of the World, 95). Exemplaire provenant de la bibliothèque du marquis de Hertford, avec l'ex-libris de sa bibliothèque de Ragley Hall et les initiales ED sur le premier plat. Reliure restaurée, le dos a été totalement refait, coins émoussés. Very good condition inside. Provenance: handwritten bookplate on title, dated 1559. - Marquis of Hertford, with bookplate and gilt initials on one board.